


my girl, my girl remember the chill, when rains froze and snows did kill

by elizabethisnotcool



Series: listen to the music [3]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Azula (Avatar) Redemption, Crazy Azula (Avatar), Inspired By Eo's Song from Red Rising, POV Azula (Avatar), a little ooc, also a little inspired by Arsonist's Lullaby by Hozier, demented azula, i still can't write endings, intentionally choppy writing, just call me bill from it chapter 2 at this point
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-15
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-17 09:09:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29469243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elizabethisnotcool/pseuds/elizabethisnotcool
Summary: Azula remembers shattering the mirror. She remembers how it didn't make her mother go away.
Relationships: Aang & Katara & Sokka & Toph, Azula & Zuko (Avatar)
Series: listen to the music [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2092260
Kudos: 11





	my girl, my girl remember the chill, when rains froze and snows did kill

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! A few things. 1) This inspired by Eo's Song from Red Rising, which I put blatantly in the text, to which I will remind you the song is not mine, and the link will be at the bottom. 2) At the beginning, the writing is intentionally choppy and uneven, because it needed to fit with Azula's uneven thought process.

Demented. That's what they called her. 

Azula wasn’t demented. That’s what her mother always said anyways, from her place she took sometimes in the mirror. She claimed the old chair next to the bed, in the middle of the room. It was where the visitors sat. 

Azula wasn’t demented. She was haunted by broken mirrors and shattered memories. 

Demented meant crazy. Azula wasn’t crazy. Azula was just tired. All Azula had was her aching hands and her corporeal mother. Sometimes she had her brother, but no more than she did when they were kids. He came once a week, and always brought her something to eat. She never ate it. It was always swept away a day after it was brought. Still, Zuko always brought her something to eat. 

Azula never talked to her brother. Silence seemed to appease her heavy tongue more than speech. She didn’t have much to say to him anyways. 

He came, told her about his day, and left. He always waited for her to speak. He asked questions and left a silence for her to fill. It always buzzed empty between them. Then he carried on talking like nothing happened. She turned to mother. Mother wanted her to talk to him. Azula looked away.

___

When Azula did talk, it was before he sat down. Startled, he almost dropped the tray he was holding, sending a sweet toppling to the ground. She hated the way she sounded, gravelly and uneven. Hazy words did not fit a princess, if she was to be called that anymore. Her voice hummed with discontent as she continued speaking.

“Did you hear them, Zuko?” 

Zuko stilled further by the door. “What?” 

She was silent for many moments, and her eyes flitted between Zuko and the mirror, as they had always done. Zuko desperately sat down in the chair, dissipating their mother and cursing her to a standing position. She stood with a hand on Azula’s shoulder, like she did every time as of late. Part of Azula assumed she was trying to make up for her mistreatment.The tears on her cheek knew she was wrong. 

Almost hysterically, Zuko lurched forward, taking Azula’s hands in her own. She flinched away, but Zuko held steadfast, almost squeezing her hands precariously. “What? Hear what?” 

“The voices.”   
“What voices?”

“When we were fighting.” A beat. Eyes fluttering to the mirror. Then: “Mother and Father.”

“W-” Inhale. Exhale. “What did they say?” 

“Father told me to kill you.” She didn’t elaborate. 

“What did Mother say?” Zuko’s voice was teetering on curious. He swallowed it down and stared into her fire-ravaged eyes. 

Again Azula was silent. She stared at her mother and she nodded to Azula, encouraging her to talk. She always encouraged her to talk. 

“She was there.” Azula looked at him with a questioning look, as if he should know this. “She only smiled when Katara-” Azula stopped, snapping her mouth shut like she had said something forbidden. Her nostrils flared and her eyes just barely focused on Zuko staring at her. Soon he tilted his head to the side, asking her to keep going. Azula didn’t want to. 

Her eyes glazed over and fixated on the stone wall as her mind began speaking in every different voice it could think up. It soon began to get cluttered with her thoughts, none of them mercifully being ‘open your mouth and speak’. Her tongue felt weighted again and her mother retreated only to the mirror. There was a tear on Zuko’s cheek. She wondered why. 

When she gathered up enough strength to look at him questioningly, He had already began to stand up with a sniffle. Why was he leaving? 

“Goodnight, Azula.” 

Why couldn’t she say it back?

__

It was dark when he visited again. It was not yet his time to visit. Azula knew this because he interrupted their mother’s singing to her. She resented him for that. He had it enough when they were children. 

He stepped fully inside the room, forcing their mother to let go of Azula’s hair she was gently brushing back. He was cloaked in a dark red robe. It looked like their father’s, but it was smaller. Much smaller. It swished when he walked. She closed her eyes. She didn’t want to be back in lessons with her father, when his cloak would swish and she would cry. 

“Azula-”

“Take the cloak off.”

“What?” She could feel him staring at her still closed eyes. 

“Father.” She said and he understood, at once throwing the cloak out of the door. She opened her eyes to him in the chair.

She stared at him as her thank-you. 

He sat in the chair and sighed, taking her look as a que to begin speaking. Again he spoke of his day, leaving blanks for her to fill in the form of questions. She answered two of them. Then she felt tired and closed her eyes again. He spoke only a bit more, careful and quieter. Like a breeze, he then began to transition his easy speech into their mother’s song to him. Ironic. He was never much of a singer, but he sang quietly to her before pulling her blanket to her shoulders and leaving the room with the cease of the song. 

“Listen, listen  
Remember the wane  
Of son's Fury and waving grain  
We fell and fell  
And danced along  
To croon a knell  
Of rights and wrongs

And  
My son, my son  
Remember the burn  
When leaves with fire and seasons turned  
We fell and fell  
And sang a song  
To weave a Cell  
All autumn long

And  
Down in the vale  
Hear the reaper swing, the reaper swing  
The reaper swing  
Down in the vale  
Hear the reaper sing  
A tale of winter long

My girl, my girl  
Remember the chill  
When rains froze and snows did kill  
We fell and fell  
And danced along  
Through icy hell  
To their winter song

My love, my love  
Remember the cries  
When winter died for spring skies  
They roared and roared  
But we grabbed our seed  
And sowed a song  
Against their greed

My son, my son  
Remember the chains  
When gold ruled with iron reins  
We roared and roared  
And twisted and screamed  
For ours, a vale  
Of better dreams

And  
Down in the vale  
Hear the reaper swing, the reaper swing  
The reaper swing  
Down in the vale  
Hear the reaper sing  
A tale of winter done”

She thinks she smiled. 

_

She heard him talking outside of her room before he crossed the threshold. It was their normal visiting time, so she had expected him. Not the three other pairs of feet. They came to a halt outside of her room, and she knew one of them was Zuko because she had long memorized his footsteps. They both had lessons from their father, and the nights afterwards were one of the only things that brought them together when they were young. He crept to her room, or she to his, and they wouldn’t say a word as they crawled in each other's beds. She liked going to his room better. If she was lucky, Mother would find them both there, and sing to them both. 

“I really do think she’s getting better, Katara. She’s started talking to me more.” 

“Is she eating the sweets you bring her?” Aang asked. 

“Well, no, but she wasn’t talking before.” Zuko said hurriedly. 

Katara spoke next. “It is good that she’s talking. That’s at least progress.”

“She’s listening to us.” A voice piped up, still just as small as she remembered. 

There was an “O-oh.” from Zuko, then retreating footsteps as he bounded into the room. 

“Hey, Azula.” 

She cast her gaze to him, inviting him to sit in the visitor’s chair. He obliged, effectively casting their mother to her usual standing position. 

Before she could even attempt to gather the strength to begin speaking, she caught sight of Zuko’s hand limp by his side. It was heavily bandaged and out of the bandage came little spiderwebs of red, angry flesh. They stretched almost to his whole hand, covering the places the bandages could never hope to. She knew those wounds. 

“Mirror.” She said, attention fully on his hand. 

“Yeah.” Zuko said. “I, uh, punched one. Dad.” 

Azula nodded her understanding. 

They talked more, this time with more input from Azula, and recounted memories and days ahead. Zuko was consumed by smiles and Azula produced a few herself, eliciting even more from Zuko. 

She was getting better.

**Author's Note:**

> The version of the song I used can be found here!:  
> https://youtu.be/6uSx_jUHWrU


End file.
